Could Diablo 3 Be Announced Soon?

We here at MMOCrunch are no strangers to speculation, as can be noted by our past experiences with the ponderings over the existence of Diablo 3. Personally, I have no doubt in my mind that Blizzard is working on it even as I write. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that it’s been officially announced. Blizzard, being the masters of polish and secrecy that they are, has been keeping a tight lid on all of it’s secret projects, but is that about to end for Diablo 3?

Blizzplanet.com seems to think so and for good reason to. While rooting around their latest issue of PC Gamer Magazine and doing a little research they have actually found some pretty reliable information that PC Gamer Magazine might get the “go ahead” from Blizzard to unleash all the details in their August issue. Of course, it all started with this key comment from one of PC Gamer Magazine’s writers:

“NEXT MONTH
Have you ever had a secret that you’re just dying to blurt out, but you can’t for another month, and the stress of holding it in makes you want to do the pee-pee dance? That’s what the PC Gamer staff is doing right now, because the August issue will be chock-full of exclusives, including a top-secret cover story so huge we had to go to [CENSORED] to get it. Just 30 days more …”

Pretty tantalizing huh? It’s obvious that PC Gamer at least has something that we will want to know about, MMO or otherwise. However, there is some added evidence on top of that that lends credence to Blizzplanet.com’s logic such as:

A few weeks ago Blizzard invited a number of gaming press magazines to their headquarters in Irvine, CA. Was PC Gamer Magazine one of them? Maybe…

PC Gamer Magazine knew about Starcraft 2 before it was announced.

Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational is in late June.

Amongst other things that you can read up on by following the link at the bottom.

So could this possibly be it? Are we really only a month or two from getting an official announcement for Diablo 3. I am certainly hoping so. Stay tuned, as we get more information in the coming months!

6 Comments

While I would really love to see Diablo 3, there are some things that make me think that it isn’t Diablo 3 (at least not in the action-rpg sense.)
First of all, most of the Diablo team from Blizzard has moved on to Flagship Studio. While I don’t think this would necessarily dissuade them from pursuing this title further, it’s something that should be considered.
Second, Blizzard is already working on StarCraft 2, which means they are building yet another game from one of the three franchises that they created. I personally think that they are wanting to branch out from the franchises that they’ve been using for the past decade (or longer in WarCraft’s case.)
The third thing that makes me think it’s not going to be “Diablo 3” is that the other game they are working on is a “next-gen MMO.” To me, this means moving in a completely different direction than WoW, even though “next-gen” is probably just a buzz term. I suppose that it could end up being a Diablo-based MMO, but I just don’t think so. I think it’s time that they moved on to something new, but everyone knows that Blizzard does whatever they want, so we’ll see.

@Kanthalos
#2 I think Blizzard basically confirmed a long time ago that the Diablo series was not finished.
#3 Blizzard doesn’t work on just one game at a time anymore. They’re working on an MMO (which might be an MMO in the same sense that Hellgate was called an MMO), but they’re definitely working on Diablo 3 as well (again, if that’s not the MMO).

They’re still just rumors, but they’re plausible this time. If it is coming out soon, I’ll collapse from overload. I’m not sure if I can handle so many dream-games coming out in the same year: Spore, LOTR:Conquest, Tom Clancy’s Endwar, Fable 2. Keep ’em coming!